


Amuse-bouche

by shinesurge



Category: Kidd Commander (Webcomic)
Genre: Gen, gardens are dangerous, ulrich finally gets a snack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-15
Updated: 2018-08-15
Packaged: 2019-06-27 14:35:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,317
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15687381
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinesurge/pseuds/shinesurge
Summary: Ulrich has tea with Rook; it's incredibly stressful.A novelization ofpages 369-373of the Mile High Engage arc, from Ulrich's point of view. This is real late in the arc so take care not to spoil yourself if you haven't caught up yet.





	Amuse-bouche

**Author's Note:**

> pls help him

Ulrich loved gardens. Plants were absurdly useful things; a flower in the right place could communicate undetected, could mask the taste of an unfortunate food additive (or counter it), could pull an outfit together. Gardens were good for hiding, people or things, they were good for conversations that could only be conducted during long walks. Ulrich knew something like fourteen sleight of hand bits that were just _perfectly_ complemented by freshly cut roses, and two delightful little tricks that could be done with a champagne flute and a sufficiently long lily stem.

Rook led him through the massive double doors that opened into the sudden expanse of Artemis Ascending's greenhouse, an indoor structure but one that stretched high enough that the warm humidity clouded the glass ceiling, falsifying a sky. Outwardly Ulrich was a picture of compliance, following dutifully behind her, but he was desperately grasping at whatever details he could glean from his surroundings, wildly aware that he was in unfamiliar territory at an enormous information disadvantage to an opponent who had just demonstrated she had no qualms about ruining upholstery with blood and viscera. The various trees they passed were in full bloom, although he knew instinctively that this should be impossible. None of these plants should be able to survive in the same climate together, their vastly separate origins apparent in the patterns of their petals. Maybe trinkets saved from places Rook and her father had traveled to. He tried not to flinch as the doors slammed shut behind them. Rook did not look back to see if he was following, hadn't spoken much at all since her threat in the foyer; she fully expected him to behave. The grass under Ulrich's heavy shoes was delicate and gentle and a pleasing shade of blue. Somewhere in him, somewhere soft, he felt guilty treading on it. 

Ulrich suffered no shortage of reasons to love a garden, but he loved the garden he was currently seated in for very specific and cruel reasons. Someone was going to die in this room, probably soon. 

It was a picturesque spot for a picnic. Ulrich was parked in one of two wicker chairs that almost looked like they had been _grown_ , sat on either side of a low wooden table. A delicate blue vase held a citronella candle with an unlit wick, though it was blackened from previous use. They had been on dates like this, he recalled with a touch of old guilt. Ulrich held his hat in his lap but he couldn't take off his mask yet, not before he knew more. The huge clock face mounted on the glass wall was an unexpected but lovely set piece. The bigger gears in the back were covered in flowering vines; the enormous arms with their celestial engravings clearly measured something much longer than hours and minutes. Still, it hummed, its mechanical heartbeat a steady undercurrent to the singing of trapped birds and the periodic interjections of timed sprinkler systems dotted among the bushes. The tapping of Rook's fingernails on the lacquered wicker chair as she regarded Ulrich across the table between them was the most concerning sound out of everything, giving the relatively quiet noise a sharper presence. He was quickly running out of time for planning.

"Do you like it?" Rook purred, correctly assuming he was still somewhat distracted trying to figure out the clock mechanism. "It doesn't tell the time, something to do with the lunar phases I think. We can't keep the plants off of it." She smiled, genuinely. "I thought you might like it."

Ulrich shifted in his chair, breathing deliberately through his nose to activate the anti-inflammatory in his mask. Rook's figure was sharp through the magnifying lenses. A fleeting thought pined for his feathers to hide behind. 

"You must be hungry." She motioned, and a tiered tray of finger foods and a glass tea set manifested on the table. A neat trick; the sandwiches and chic desserts had likely been waiting here for them behind a glamour spell. Ulrich wondered at what point she had decided to bring him here, but the thought was shoved aside as hunger flared violently at the sight of food. His stomach growled conspicuously and Rook looked pleased with herself.

"I know you can't have had time to eat today. Certainly nothing _worth_ eating at least." Rook poured tea for herself, holding her cup in one hand and gesturing for the glass pot to pour for her so she wouldn't have to reach across the table, which might put her shawl at an unflattering angle. Ulrich eyed the blue magic with suspicion; the spell pouring tea now was exactly the same shade as the ice that had ripped apart the thug from before. As she watched her flowering tea bloom, Rook's voice called him back. "How long have you been here, hiding out? Why didn't you just come talk to me?"

Ulrich didn't say anything. He knew it was rude, but he also knew Rook. A little longer. 

"You must lighten up, Weiss. You don't really think I'd poison you with tea sandwiches, do you?" she smirked over her teacup. "I respect you enough to put a little more finesse into my method of assassination." It was a joke, but Ulrich kept silent, still, holding his hat somewhat protectively. Finally, when Rook frowned, he saw that little twitch in the corner of her mouth that meant it was time to speak up.

"Still nothing?" Rook whined. "I've never seen you go so long so quietly. Where's that delightfully rhetorical gentleman I met in Verdantia?" Ulrich's reply was swift and coldly matter-of-fact.

"He sat in a cell for three days and had time to rethink his opinion of you." 

Delighted she got him talking, Rook waved a hand dismissively.

"Don't be such a baby, it was nothing you couldn't _handle_ , obviously." Ulrich didn't answer, relying on the cover of his mask to make his lack of response more icy. Rook's enthusiasm waned an appropriately polite amount. 

"...I _am_ sorry, I shouldn't have left you like that. I just- I wanted to see what you were _made_ of." She brightened, and Ulrich knew instantly that she was lying. Not that he needed the confirmation now; the details of their parting were painfully fresh in his mind, and absolutely nothing in her demeanor indicated that she had any intention of ever seeing him again. The ring - his ring, the little glass lotus he had come all this way to retrieve - glinted on Rook's finger, and a surge of fury seared up Ulrich's spine. He shoved it back as quickly as it had come. He didn't have room for it just now. Rook continued, having no way of knowing what methods of revenge were flashing through Ulrich's mind.

"And now look, here you are! Do you have any idea how incredible it is that you're even _here_ right now?" She steepled her fingers, a conversational gesture Ulrich guessed she picked up from Hazard, who seemed like the type to do so. "My father and I have evaded things you couldn't _fathom_ , and you found me all on your own! I'm _thoroughly_ impressed."

"I couldn't care less how impressed you are." Ulrich said evenly. "If I recall correctly, _you_ were being recruited to come work for _me."_ Rook sipped her tea.

"Ulrich, sweetheart-" Ulrich bristled, involuntarily thrown into a memory where she murmured the phrase to him under very different circumstances. "-you can cling to your affirmations as tightly as you like. But you and I both know you're not cut out for leadership. You're a supporting character. You'll always be at the beck and call of someone else because that's all you _know_." 

Ulrich swallowed and there was the scent of pink perfume, the rake of nails lightly through his hair as he rested his head in Bel's lap; as easily as progressing from one breath to the next, as familiar as an old hat, his mistress had been called to him by Rook's words. Behind his mask, unprepared for her presence as he always was, Ulrich closed his eyes and tried to steady himself in the onslaught against his sense. He was grateful Rook wasn't done speaking.

"You're a hound, you're a _dog_." Rook sneered, thankfully still perceiving none of Ulrich's feelings. "Someone caught and collared you early and you're going to stay that way for the rest of your life." Ulrich managed to focus on her, and found she was no longer smiling. Her stare was almost aggressive; a bit too much to only be speaking to Ulrich. "You are what you are. Fighting only delays the inevitable." Bitterness? Ulrich could not reliably tell; Bel was here, the corners of his vision were clouded so with his own bitterness and nostalgia he didn't trust his judgement for it. As if on cue, a shower of flower petals settled around his shoulders. Rook couldn't see them, no one could see them, don't look don't touch.

"But the people in the back are the _foundation_ of the operation. You worked in the theater," Rook's fingers around her cup were a delicate frame for the blossom floating inside as she considered the roots tangling beneath it, coloring the water. "Without someone competent running the lights that charisma doesn't get very far, _does_ it? You and I are _valuable_ , it's in our best interests to be picky about who we serve with our talents." Here she regarded him with yet another look Ulrich couldn't place. Pity, but for whom he could not discern. "Regardless of what _you_ might think." Oh, it was him. 

Ulrich wanted to roll his eyes at how off the mark it was for her to assess him as such. The time they'd spent together had been a farce, naturally, but it was still somewhat disappointing that she was under the impression that what he felt ever had anything to do with the course of his life. She didn't know anything. He let her keep digging herself deeper, the outlines of his snare beginning to materialize.

"Whatever you came from did a good job smashing the spirit out of you. That blight in your eye isn't there _accidentally_ , is it?" Ulrich was quick to stifle the sarcastic response that welled on his tongue. 

"Someone was careful to keep you from getting too sure of yourself." she went on. Her smirk was positively predatory. "But you got _lucky,_ didn't you? You still have your _voice_. Silverspeak can't be replaced..." She set her teacup down and made an unnecessary flourish Ulrich would have appreciated another time, drawing her visor into being around her face. The familiar feel-more-than-hear hum of subspace mechanisms, the same that he felt every time he called up his own mask, touched the back of his neck. 

"And you can _buy_ your sight back, if you know the right people." Ah, right, as if money was the issue. Of course it would seem that way to someone whose sense of power came exclusively from material wealth. He had known this about her from before, watching her light up over gifts exchanged between the two of them more than she ever had at any words or gestures, but Ulrich still felt immensely weary. He _wished_ it were about money, or connections. 

Ulrich had long ago learned that ego, particularly one such as his, got in the way of otherwise favorable negotiations. He had no difficulty letting people think he was weak, or stupid, or whatever would keep him alive. But that didn't mean he felt nothing when he did so, and as Rook launched into an insistence that she and her father could help him be "more" than he was, like a charity case, he saw an opportunity and allowed himself to vent. Just to more effectively play the part, mind. Bel's eyes burning into his back may have also spurred him on. He had no idea what Silverspeak was, but it was clearly an asset she thought he possessed, so he saw no reason to refute it.

"Do you think I am unaware of my worth?" Ulrich cut her off mid-sentence. He felt his eyebrows raise and his eyes narrow in disdain as he spoke, although the expression was wasted behind the cover of his mask. "Your father has tried this already, his offer was dismissive and, frankly, insulting. If either of you has a better offer than Phineas does, I've yet to hear it." 

Rook sighed and waved her fingers over her visor again, her gelled nail polish flashing in the light as she dismissed the construct. "Mm, sorry. Diplomacy has been in short supply with this family lately."

Rook straightened in her chair, suddenly all business. The ambient blue light made her look ghostly pale, almost ethereal. Somewhere in the garden a new set of sprinklers began their program.

"The commander will die here. In ability and experience my dad is far beyond her, and he has decades of misplaced frustration to keep him going." She paused, glancing away briefly like she'd gotten lost in a thought. Then, turning back to him, "Were that not the case, she is unstable. The spark of her ambition is already flaring faster than she can feed it, and soon it will devour her." She set her teacup down and braced her hands on the armrests of her chair. 

"And everyone around her. Look where you _are,_ you've known her for half a day and she already has you charging in and stealing ships from demigods? Commanders' methods of manipulation are much nastier than anything _you_ could do with that silver tongue-" Ulrich snorted, thinking of how plainly Phineas' feelings were felt with her entire being. As if she was even _capable_ of ulterior motives. "-you're just something she can put between herself and the death she's working so hard to keep cheating." Remarkably, here Rook's face softened. 

"I've done it myself before, I _know_ what it looks like. I can't stand to see you wasted on this careless little upstart."

Ulrich remembered the feeling of being thrown aside like a ragdoll, of Phineas' face covered in blood and sweat and dirt around the unbearably bright hollow of eyes that weren't really hers as she smiled at him, empty and unseeing and with the feeling that she was only throwing it in his _approximation_. But he understood she was trying to reach him from her unbearable heights the only way she could; an empty, bloody smile and an attempt to get him to safety was better than no connection at all, even if both had been painful. Rook's face was sincere and he'd be lying if he said it didn't stir up some degree of guilty nostalgia, but on the heels of the memory of a rough cave wall jutting into his back, Ulrich also remembered the feeling of cold concrete as he slept in a Verdantia jail cell.

There was also, of course, the matter of the ring on her finger, teasing him and constantly drawing his eye away from her face. True to form, even now it didn't matter what Ulrich really felt. He had come here with a purpose. His mouth obediently curled into a smile that didn't reach the rest of his face. 

"Ooh, she _scares_ you." Ulrich swore he heard Bel's mean laugh echo somewhere in the trees. "Or, she scares whoever you're borrowing that diatribe from. That doesn't lend a lot of credit to your case."

He'd always chalked it up to a sort of Flow, the way he felt when he played a part, like there was something calming and cool welling up in his heart and coating his words, making them glisten like gossamer. He knew this was ridiculous, romantic nonsense, and hadn't even told Bel about it. But he never felt as good as when he was calling it up and rolling it off his tongue, imagining his words weaving a curtain in the air before him, catching a spotlight only he could see. He felt it now, as he leaned into his angle. Distracted, the hand over his hat fidgeted with a flower petal that had fallen from his shoulder. He knew it wasn't there, just like he knew Bel wasn't there, but he could feel the pigment coating the tip of his thumb all the same.

"I watched her destroy what I can only describe as divine beings," Ulrich felt his voice scroll out from him like ticker tape. "I _felt_ her demand reality change shape, and reality _bent_. I am a skeptic, but these are things I have witnessed myself. Everyone who has underestimated her has suffered; I don't intend to join them."

Rook giggled mirthlessly, sipping from her teacup again.

"That's not terrible logic. She must have seemed like the smart choice, managing to fight off a couple minor deities." under her breath, she added, "...by the skin of her teeth..." She looked over the rim of her tea at Ulrich, her eyes narrowed. "But what about the side that put those things _down_ there?" 

Briefly, Ulrich felt his facade slip as he recalled the clawing darkness that tore his eyes and his throat and howled loudly enough to shake his soul apart. He felt his flower petal crunch between his fingers; it had withered suddenly. He scrabbled to recollect himself behind his mask. 

"I have made some very powerful friends since we last spoke." Rook continued, her voice low and ungarnished. "Whatever you thought _I_ could help you with before would be _nothing_ to them. They could restore your body, your _soul,_ all that damage you've been living with could be _gone."_

Ulrich swallowed. Rook sighed, regarding him with pity. Ulrich felt indignant frustration radiating through him again, but more than that he began to get the creeping suspicion that he had, perhaps, stumbled into something a bit over his head. 

"Last time we met you seemed so _tired,_ you'd been on your own so long already. I can't imagine it's gotten any easier since then. Wouldn't it be nice to outsource some of that stress?" 

Ulrich could see his role, the path he could take to get where he wanted. 

"Ulrich, let us _help_ you."

He hesitated, his instincts telling him this was one of those moments that he would look back on one day as a decision that had irrevocably changed the trajectory of his life. He thought of hanging blind and mute in the clutches of something he still couldn't quite believe was real, Phineas' body beating him bloody into bedrock far away from the sun's light. The thought that he was currently only a few degrees separated from what controlled that darkness (if Rook wasn't lying, at least) made him dizzy, like looking into an abyss. He considered that he was still here to have these thoughts, Phineas' light ( _whatever_ that thing had been) so bright it reached him even when he could see nothing else. 

But, mostly, he thought of the way his lotus glittered back at him from across the table. He thought of Bel, he thought of Bel, always, and he felt her hands closing over his, stroking his face, and he knew there was only one course of action to take. A lonesome, _aching_ weariness settled deep in Ulrich's bones as he mentally straightened his coat and tie, felt more hopelessly tangled as, impossibly, the web around him grew tighter and bigger and writhed alive with even more incomprehensible pursuers. 

The grass was soft as he ground his boots against it. But there was no other choice. He took off his mask, then he took off his mask. Behind him, at his shoulder, wrapped around him, Bel Fortuna smiled. 

"Rook," his voice cracked, under the fates of four people, he imagined. Maybe more, who could say. "do you think...?"


End file.
